Prologue
He was a god created to conquer, and in conquering, lost all.
Alaric did not know the dark warmth of a womb, the loving words of a parent, nor the joys and tribulations of childhood. He began as a violent ache in the throat of the Cosmos, a terrible paradox forged to shatter Zeus’s corrupt pantheon, yet coded with an incorruptible soul designed to protect the weak.
He loathed that heavy mantle of power. He desired no glory, no crown, no throne. Seeking to become more than the weapon he was meant to be, he plummeted through the clouds, folded his terrifying midnight wings beneath his skin, and hid away in the mortal dirt.
Then, he met Maeve.
She was a mortal woman, but to Alaric, she was more vibrant than any star. She was his fated mate, his perfect refuge, and the only thing the Cosmos had gifted him that he actually wanted to keep.
But none can hide from their purpose. Not even a god. And the valley of their home could not hold the illusion of peace. As Olympus’s cruelties bled into the earth, the calls of the weak grew too loud to ignore. Maeve was the one who urged him to fight. Driven by love and a choice more precious than any fated bond, Maeve refused to let him face the darkness alone, marching beside him toward a legacy he never wanted - and a war that would ultimately destroy her.
Winning the throne he was destined for cost him everything.
When he wept for her on the blood-slicked stones of Olympus, holding her lifeless body, his victory turned to ash. As the fated tether between them snapped, its ends coiled around him in chains of pain and guilt.
In that moment, he knew his love had been her death.
He would protect the world from the corrupt as he was meant to. Even if that meant never allowing anyone close enough to him to be burned again.
He did not know that the Cosmos were already working to weave a different soul, a girl born into an already abandoned cradle, whose mask of grace would conceal her own wound. Yet she would become the only one whose empathy could bear the burden of his bloodstained throne - if only he didn't break her first.
